Dear Mr. Cathy,
I would like to personally thank you for your support of 'traditional' marriage. As an atheist man who has been married to a bisexual woman for nearly fourteen years, it is refreshing to hear that you are in full support of our marriage to one another. Please allow me to tell you a bit about it.
(it gets worse/better below the fold)
After living together for nearly a year, my (then-)girlfriend and I saw a program on television that frightened us both. This program was about a couple who were in a fully committed, long-term relationship, yet weren't married. The boyfriend was in a terrible accident and was left comatose. He had let his girlfriend know that he did not want to be kept alive under those circumstances, yet his parents didn't agree and wanted to keep him on life support. There was a huge court case, which the girlfriend eventually lost.
After the program was over, we had a long conversation about it. We discussed the religious views of our families (mine, Pentecostal, and hers, Mormon). We discussed the fact that her parents had divorced, remarried, and now seemed to hate each other. We discussed the fact that my parents seemed bitter and unhappy much of the time as I was growing up, but that they seemed to have stayed together because of their religion. We decided that, even though we were fully committed to each other anyway, we should also get married.
However, being atheists, we had no church to go to. Also, being young and poor, we weren't exactly sure how to go about a 'justice of the peace' marriage. So, we visited a website for something called 'The Universal Life Church'. This site allows anyone to become an ordained minister who can legally perform marriages, funerals, and more. The singer of my band agreed to be ordained and to perform the ceremony. Since our favorite holiday is Halloween, we set the date for October 31, 1998.
The ceremony was held at The Office, a local punk club, during one of my band's shows. My bride, the minister, and I were all dressed as zombies, while the other two hundred or so attendees were all dressed in various, traditional Halloween garb. Preceding the actual ceremony, the minister had consumed a large amount of alcohol and was quite drunk, as were most of the attendees. Between our songs about the dark lord, Cthulhu, cannibalistic serial killers and man-eating Martians, we said our 'I do's' and stepped out into a long, romantic life together.
Sure, sometimes we argue about little things, but it has otherwise been a great fourteen years. We are atheists together. We protest 'street preachers' together. We go 'girl watching' together. We watch 'girl on girl' pornography together. We decided to boycott your restaurant because of your bigotry and your donations to hate groups together. But, most importantly to you, we are man and woman together.
So, thank you and congratulations on defending my marriage. Please let me know how I can get you to support all marriages with such fervor, because I loved your waffle fries.
Thank you,
spgilbert
UPDATE: My father read this article, and after a screaming match with him, wherein he called my wife a 'fag' and I told him that I would no longer be speaking with him, he let me know that it wasn't his religion that kept him and my mother together. So, I have updated the following phrase: 'We discussed the fact that my parents were bitter and unhappy much of the time, but had stayed together because of their religion.' to 'We discussed the fact that my parents seemed bitter and unhappy much of the time as I was growing up, but that they seemed to have stayed together because of their religion.'